Tyrone Power: Matinee Idol Collection On DVD

If you're a Tyrone Power fan, it's very difficult to complain about the star's showing on DVD. Not only are Power's best-known films available, but the Tyrone Power Matinee Idol Collectionserves up 10 titles that greatly fill in his tenure at Twentieth Century Fox. There isn't a classic in the set, just the kind of titles that audiences ate up when the handsome young actor was at his most popular. The oldest film in the box is Girls' Dormitory (1936), and Power is barely in it--he shows up in the final 10 minutes of this 66-minute drama. But it's a good one, energetically directed by Irving Cummings, about schoolmaster Herbert Marshall being dangerously worshipped by young student Simone Simon. The ending just might surprise you. Café Metropole is an efficient comedy about restaurant owner Adolphe Menjou and his plot to pay off debts by getting Power to impersonate a Russian prince and woo wealthy Loretta Young. Young is also Ty's co-star in two other 1937 pictures. Second Honeymoon pits them as a pair of exes, romping around Miami as Loretta shows off her new husband. The movie's a weirdly coarse approximation of the screwball formula that was in the air at the time. Love is News is better: Power is a newspaper reporter whose stories makes life uncomfortable for heiress Young; she turns the tables by pretending to be engaged to him. Director Tay Garnett gets a loose, knockabout quality into the performances, and Don Ameche contributes some Front Page salt. The remake of Love is Newsis also included: That Wonderful Urge (1948), with Power back in his role and Gene Tierney as the heiress. Day-Time Wife (1939) pairs Power with new Fox starlet Linda Darnell; he's too busy at work with his secretary, and she takes a job as a secretary herself (to wolfish boss Warren William, who could do wolfish better than anybody). In this battle of the sexes, male chauvinism reigns supreme. Power squirmed at Fox's lightweight view of him, and Johnny Apollo has a little more guts: Power is a feckless Ivy League lad who becomes disillusioned and falls into the world of the mob. You can see the actor excited by the darker possibilities of the role--but rest assured he's still every inch the elegant clotheshorse in this one. This Above All (1942) is a strange story and a dry run for Power's role as the soul-searcher in The Razor's Edge: he's an embittered soldier questioning the purpose of fighting the war. Patriotic Joan Fontaine has a few speeches for him, and director Anatole Litvak makes it all look sharp.After a run of dramatic roles and a break for WWII service, Power came back to romantic comedy with The Luck of the Irish, a whimsy-heavy thing about a reporter who tries to sell out--but not if a leprechaun (Cecil Kellaway) and a sweet Irish lass (Anne Baxter) have anything to do with it. The movie's no great shakes, but the DVD provides an option to watch the Irish scenes with green tinting, a novelty from the original theatrical release.

I'll Never Forget You (aka The House in the Square), directed by Roy Ward Baker, is a costume picture with a supernatural edge--and fans of Somewhere in Time will recognize a kindred spirit. Ty plays a scientist whose house is a portal to the 18th century, where he travels to impersonate a lookalike ancestor. This nifty romance co-stars Ann Blyth and gives a delightfully foppish role to Dennis Price. Short documentaries fill out the box, including a lovely reminiscence from Power's three children. --Robert Horton

Disc 1: CAFE METROPOLE '37 + GIRLS DORMITORY '36 Disc 2: JOHNNY APOLLO '40 + DAYTIME WIFE '39 Disc 3: LUCK OF THE IRISH '48 + I'LL NEVER FORGET YOU '51 Disc 4: THAT WONDERFUL URGE '48 + LOVE IS NEWS '37 Disc 5: THIS ABOVE ALL '42 + SECOND HONEYMOON '37

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